


Berlin Calling

by Moheri



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crime, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Crime Scenes, Drug Use, Explicit Sexual Content, Historical, M/M, Minor Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological, Thriller, all sex is consensual, plot heavy, spoilers for acwnr
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:01:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28659882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moheri/pseuds/Moheri
Summary: ---The glint was back in these blue eyes, and Levi briefly suspected a trace of madness behind them. Erwin wouldn't be the first to lose his mind over the crushing definiteness of the world they were born into, but he was certainly the last Levi would have expected to. The chilling laughter that suddenly bubbled from Erwin's throat let the fear crawling beneath Levi's skin bloom to full panic."Listen, we absolutely can't be here together.""It's about the wall."That knocked all air right out of Levi’s lungs, and he felt his stomach turn."What about the wall?""It fell."---Berlin in the 90s - The wall has fallen, and Levi finds himself in the midst of a new era. The system that forms around him is brittle and fragile. With a certain bright eyed brat, he experiences new highs of unknown freedom. Simultaneously, he struggles with the responsibility of rebuilding the city that he and Erwin call their home - until a series of murders confronts him with whatever he hoped was buried under the debris of the old regime.
Relationships: Levi/Eren Yeager
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	1. Preface

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a short story before it ran wild. The preface is said short story. The rest will be updated irregularly.
> 
> I'll be internally grateful for your comments <3 I'm starving for feedback, so please don't hesitate, I mean it :) It'll be greatly appreciated.

Three loud bangs on his door. They were placed with determination and fervor, demanding entry unquestioningly. It was the knock of a person used to holding a certain authority. A scowl crossed Levi's face, but he wiped his expression clean before stubbing out his cigarette and downing his drink without a wince, thinking a light buzz wouldn’t hurt when dealing with the source of the knock. Meticulously controlling one’s expression was the only defiance one could dare, and ironically also the only thing that could save a life when things threatened to go south. Smoke billowed from his nostrils and curled into the room lazily, just to be stirred again by his passing silhouette. He stepped on the loose floorboard on his way through the hall, just to be sure. 

Worst case scenario this would be his last day in this shit hole. Best case scenario, he'd again manage to dodge whatever curve ball was thrown at him, but he was smart enough to know the air he breathed was getting thinner. He could hear stomping and a loud bang down on the streets, but his nerves weren't tense enough for it to actually startle him. Not yet anyways. He had enough precautions in place.

Levi took a look through the viewer, but whoever was on the other side firmly held onto the advantage of cold November darkness. Them refraining from using any source of light wasn't a good sign, quite the opposite actually. 

The yawning void boded Levi’s demise, but in the end, it was fine by him. He had put up a good fight, not really expecting to make it through until now, and he was ready to accept the implications. He knew he certainly wouldn't be the last to join the ranks of hundreds of nameless faces, their identities wiped, buried and forgotten under the debris of the place they were unfortunate enough to call home. Yesterday, today or three months from now - it was only a question of time. 

Cold fingers wrapped around Levi’s sternum and sent a shiver of careful anticipation through his chest when he yanked open the door. It took him a moment too long to make sense of the situation, which his visitor exploited shamelessly. Without a word, the man stepped inside, and closed the door behind him. He loomed over Levi, whose expression had slipped, years of training forgotten in the fraction of a second. 

"You can't...", but the words died on Levi's lips when true fear finally flooded his limbs. He tried again, voice low. "Erwin, you can't be here, this is-"

"Have you heard?"

Erwin's eyes were wide, a strange expression on his normally composed face. He being here meant- Levi actually didn't know what it meant, except for how unspeakably dangerous it was. He kept his voice at a desperate whisper, carefully contained in the thin layer of air between them. 

"We can't talk here."

He grabbed Erwin by the arm and led him through the hallway and into the small washroom. He shoved him in, closed the door and took two quick strides over to the bathtub to let the water run. Then he turned to do the same with the sink before he looked at Erwin who was patiently waiting by the door. The piercing blue of his eyes covered Levi's skin in frost, and the fear flickered menacingly, licking at a knot in his guts.

_"Have you lost your fucking mind?"_ , said Levi, his voice still a whisper barely audible over the running water. 

"So you really haven't heard.", Erwin answered and ran a hand over his face in disbelief. To Levi's horror, he didn't bother keeping his voice down. 

"Fucking tone it down a notch.", he hissed. "If they find us, they'll bite our fucking heads off before we know it. It's madness out there and I-"

"Levi."

"- can't keep covering for people's fucking imprudence. I never thought-"

"Levi."

"- I'd have to cover for yours of all people. If this isn't worth the risk, so help me God-"

_"Levi."_

The urgency of Erwin's tone cut through his words and he fell silent with a cuss under his breath.

"It's over.", said Erwin, and he still didn't bother keeping his voice down. He was really trying to get them both killed.

"What is?"

"Everything. It's happening."

The glint was back in these blue eyes, and Levi briefly suspected a trace of madness behind them. Erwin wouldn't be the first to lose his mind over the crushing definiteness of the world they were born into, but he was certainly the last Levi would have expected to. The chilling laughter that suddenly bubbled from Erwin's throat let the fear crawling beneath Levi's skin bloom to full panic. 

"Listen, we absolutely can't be here together."

"It's about the wall." 

That knocked all air right out of Levi’s lungs, and he felt his stomach turn.

"What about the wall?"

"It fell.", and with a calmness that wouldn't match the meaning of his words, Erwin reached behind Levi, and turned off the water. 

There was another loud bang on the street, followed by something big shattering against cold pavement. Erwin's words slowly sunk beneath the barrier of Levi's conception of reality, and once it latched into place, the floor tilted beneath him. He parted his lips, but when he realized there were no words to describe his horror, he closed it again, leaving him gasping for air like a fish on land.

"I never thought I'd ever see you at a loss for words.", said Erwin, and that small laugh was back. "But that actually did the trick, huh."

"What the fuck are we going to do?", Levi asked. They had plans in place for all kinds of messed up situations, but this certainly wasn't one of them. 

"We're going out to watch this place go down in flames."

"Erwin-"

"Come on now, Hanji's waiting downstairs."

The alarms in Levi’s head went off reflexively, a stinging shrill that echoed back and forth within the confines of his skull. 

"We can’t be together out in the open like that. Something happens and there’ll be no one left to take over."

"I don’t think you’re getting the gist of this.", interrupted Erwin. An unexpected scream rattled the windows and raised the hairs on Levi’s skin. 

"There’ll be nothing left for anyone to take over.", and with that, Erwin opened the door. "It’s cold out. Wear something that’ll keep you warm in case we don’t make it back here."

Levi nodded numbly. He took one deep breath, and the moment he crossed the threshold to the hall, he finally got a grip. 

"Anything else we need?", he said, distanced and practical cadence back in his voice like it had never left him. Erwin shook his head, and Levi pulled his dark leather shearling jacket over a pullover. He slipped into his boots, and was clothed in black from head to toe, ready to slip and blend in with the darkness of winding alleys when necessary. He still couldn’t gauge what they would be getting themselves into, so he stepped on one end of the loose board in the hall and pulled a switchblade from the hollow beneath the floor. 

Erwin led the way down the staircase, and once on the sidewalk, they were greeted by orange street lights and Hanji, who looked even more flustered than usual. Her cheeks were tinted pink from the cold, eyes spraying sparks behind glasses when she fell around Levi’s neck. "Can you believe we’re about to see them up close? That we’ll actually be able to touch them? I can’t wait, it will be absolutely wonderful!" 

Levi wasn’t so eager when he shoved her away. "Get your hands off me, four eyes. And calm the hell down. Can’t risk anything out here." He turned to Erwin, who watched them with his hands in the pockets of his coat. 

"Where to?", Levi asked.

"This way." Erwin nodded his head in one direction of the empty street. Levi noticed there was a general rumble, an unusual background noise that made his muscles tense. 

"We’re walking.", Erwin added, and when they turned the second corner, Levi knew why. Stepping out of the shadows of smaller streets onto one of the main roads, masses of people moved past them, hurriedly flowing towards the same destination like a tidal wave ready to sweep over and flush away whatever normalcy had inhabited the city until hours before. 

Levi despised crowds. Their behavior was hard to assess, impossible to control, and individuals could easily make themselves unseen if needed. His senses heightened when the three of them plunged in, hyper aware of every single brush of shoulders or stomp of feet within their immediate radius. Erwin went ahead, parting people left and right with the sheer aura of his presence. Every few steps he briefly turned around to check if they were still in close proximity to one another. 

People were agitated, screaming over heads to find loved ones, some passed belongings back and forth, others were just desperately trying to make it through like them. Ten minutes into it, the crowd grew even more dense, and Levi gyrated when he heard Hanji’s startled gasp behind him, switchblade in a firm grip hidden inside his jacket pocket. A man twice Hanji’s size had seized her by the shoulders, and suddenly pulled her into desperate hug. 

"Erwin!", Levi called over his shoulder to alert him, while closing the distance back to Hanji with well placed steps. Levi was just about to grab the man by the arms to take care of him with practiced movements, when he let go of Hanji. She quickly patted him on the back and laughed, that lunatic, before he disappeared into the crowd. 

"Can you believe this?", Hanji said, even louder than usual to let her voice carry above all the noise. "People behave so strange at times like this." 

"Yeah, yeah. Let’s just make it through here in one piece." Levi turned around and looked at Erwin. "Go."

It took them almost two hours to make it through to what was left of the wall. Whenever they came by a Hifi store, Levi would see the same scenes on the TV screens that faced the street on display, creating a flickering halo of pale blue. He still didn’t believe whatever bullshit story had been made up. The wall had been utter fact for the better part of his life. It was the pivot of their collective existence, the one thing that united them all, willingly or not.

When he finally saw it with his own eyes, his brain simply refused to accept it for reality. First, there was the walk over the street. There was nothing particularly noticeable about it, except for the sheer casualness of it all. Just a day before, a step in the wrong direction would have meant a bullet straight through the head, no questions asked. Now, they got to the other side of the river with the ease of a Sunday stroll, one that they shared with thousands of others on a Thursday. 

Then they reached the next crossroads, and nothing could have prepared Levi for the inconceivable ecstasy that slapped him right in the face. He could see people dancing on the streets, music blasting through open car doors, left unguarded with the keys in the ignition in the midst of it all. No one seemed to care. People cheered, ran, jumped, sat on each other’s shoulders and downed bottles like there was no tomorrow. 

Another hundred meters and they could finally see the remnants of the wall. Hanji’s iron grip closed around both Erwin’s and Levi’s forearms, signaling them to stop, and for a moment, they were just three childhood friends standing in the middle of the street, lips agape, eyes wide and unbelieving. A random memory crossed Levi’s mind, of the three of them stealthily slipping through adult legs when they had been no older than seven. The whole neighborhood had crowded the convenience store on their tiny street when word had gotten around that there was cocoa on sale. Another moment, and he discarded the comparison, as it fell ridiculously short to the scenes that were playing in front of their very eyes. 

There were dozens of people giving each other leg-ups, reaching for avid hands stretching down from the top of the wall. Others were hugging in desperate entanglements, screaming in each other’s ears, tears running down their faces. A woman crossed their path and pressed a bottle of liquor into Levi’s hands, took another step and hugged Erwin around the waist. He absentmindedly patted her perm before she let him go and took another bottle from some random person next to her. After a brief exchange they shared a passionate kiss with too much tongue and walked away hand in hand.

Levi took a burning drink from the bottle that had appeared in his hand miraculously, its origin already forgotten. The taste was unmistakable, bringing back a memory that he had filed away deep in the archives of his mind. He passed it on to Erwin who briefly looked at the label and smiled a certain smile, a rare one. He drank without a wince and handed it to Hanji. "Jack Daniel’s!", she said, and took a big sip. "Ah! Tastes like the wings of freedom." 

"Could you be any more dramatic.", Levi said and tapped a cigarette from his pack, pulling it all the way out with his teeth. He lit it with a metallic click of his fuel lighter and inhaled deeply. 

"As if you're not buying a pack of Lucky Strikes first chance you get.", Erwin said and took the bottle back from Hanji with a gloved hand. Levi didn’t answer, mainly because it was true.

"What do you think it's going to be like?", Hanji said, and there was a gleam in her eyes that Levi hadn't seen in a long time. He took another drag and shrugged. "Only one way to find out." 

With that they crossed the street and started walking towards the next border checkpoint, sharing the bottle and half a joint that was passed through to them. 

Levi’s guard was much too practiced to be let down completely, especially when they passed the small concrete building that normally hosted the border officials. A quick glance through the windows told him it was left unguarded, now a meaningless landmark buried under masses of moving people. Strangely, the utter lack of its importance would grow to be the most dazzling token in Levi’s memory of that night. Three steps, and they had left the building behind. Two steps, and they were past the gates. One step, and Levi crossed the border to West Berlin at 10:36pm on November 9th, 1989.


	2. City Blues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains three terms that you may not know but don't worry I gotchu. (This won't be too heavy on historic details though, I promise)
> 
> GDR - German Democratic Republic: The communist regime that ruled over the east of Germany from 1949 - 1990. Don't be fooled though. It wasn't democratic at all.
> 
> Stasi - abbr. "Staatssicherheit" (ger) : Official state security service of the GDR. It has been described as one of the most effective and repressive intelligence and secret police agencies ever to have existed. (Wikipedia)
> 
> Trabant - One of the very few car models that the GDR provided to its citizens.
> 
> \--
> 
> Music more or less accidentally plays a part in every story I write, whether I plan on it or not. I love weaving it in here and there

**One year later**

Levi took a long drag from his hand-rolled cigarette and watched the smoke curl into the hazy atmosphere of the bar when it billowed from his nostrils. He leaned back in his chair, retrieving himself from the dull halo of light that was cast by a low hanging lampshade above the wooden table. It was easy to tell that the place had been a small ground-level flat not so long ago, the layout of the room and the flowered wallpapers peeling off at the edges still telling of a different time. 

There were several tables with different kinds of chairs, stools and bench seats, obviously put together at random, dragged in from the next street corner on a whim. The same lack of a pattern applied to the glasses the guests drank from, to the old lamp shades hanging from the ceiling, or the blinds on the windows. No single item in the bar matched the rest, only found and reused from the manifold dumps that lined the sidewalks since the currency union. People used western money to finally rid themselves of whatever grey trash the GDR system had provided them with, _literally_ throwing it all out their windows. However fervent Levi’s aversion towards filth was, he couldn’t help the silent gratification that unfurled in him whenever he saw the piles tower eastern streets like crude memorials.

Some indistinct guitar tunes travelled from a small stage that was really just a couple of pallets spread out on the hardwood floor in the back of the room. There was a larger table a couple of meters away, hosting a group of people, chatting and laughing over their drinks in front of the makeshift stage. A guitar player sat on a bar stool and played some unobtrusive tune in between sips from the bottle to his feet. The chords were easy enough for the casual atmosphere, but Levi could tell he probably knew what he was doing. 

A flash of red hair in the corner of his eyes announced Petra’s return from the bar, and she slid him a beer and a shot of Jägermeister before sitting across from him at their small table. They touched glasses and threw back their shots before leaning back in their chairs and saying nothing for a while, sipping on their bottles. Levi had always welcomed Petra’s appreciation of enjoying silence in each other’s company, even if just for a short while to let the end of a long work day settle in. They were well into the second half of their beers when she noticed Levi’s keyring sitting on the table, and spoke.

"Did you actually get it running?"

Large, interested eyes looked back at him when Levi’s lips curled with the insinuation of a smile. 

"I finished it up today and took it for a first ride here."

"So that’s why you agreed to meet without the usual reluctance, I see.", and Petra raised her eyebrows before taking a drink from her bottle. Levi pulled out the cigarette he had put away behind his ear. "I agreed because you’re the only redhead that I can abide more than once a week."

" _Thanks_ Levi. I’ll try and not let that get to my head.", Petra said and rolled her eyes.

"Sarcasm doesn’t suit you.", Levi commented plainly before tucking the cigarette between his teeth to reach for the fuel lighter in the pocket of his jeans. It sprang to life with a satisfying metallic click.

"I guess your resentment finally rubbed off on me."

"Had to happen sooner or later.", said Levi with a shrug and lit his cigarette. 

Petra kicked his shin under the table and flashed him a fond smile that looked much more like her. Levi felt the corner of his mouth twitch before they fell silent again, and let their eyes wander around the bar.

"I like the place.", said Petra when she had followed his gaze around the room. "It just popped up out of nowhere a couple of weeks ago."

"Squatters, probably.", Levi said and took a drink from his bottle. Over the course of the year since the fall of the wall, abandoned buildings in eastern parts of the city were seized by people on a whim every now and then, to open an art gallery, or a club, or a bar like this one. Mostly, these creative projects were abandoned after a few weeks to make room for something new, but some were insistent enough to become established landmarks in the city scape. His love for tidiness put aside, Levi actually preferred these living, morphing places over traditional musty taverns, gaping holes in house facades that swallowed and chewed away at middle aged city dwellers, just to spit them out years later, bloated and bordering on the edge of alcoholism. As if on cue, a blond, red nosed man entered the room from the small corridor and heaved two boxes of liquor on the top of the bar for the girl behind the counter to shelve.

"I like how people reclaim their city. Fill it with life and all that.", Petra said.

"This soulless pit you mean? Yeah.", Levi scoffed. "Let them bulldoze the shit hole and build something worth maintaining for once."

"Well, that’s another way to put it.", Petra said and turned in her chair when the large table behind her burst out with laughter. One of the guys rubbed his forehead where a coaster had hit with impressive impact, flicked at him by a young blonde sitting across from him.

Petra grinned when she looked at Levi again, but when he met her eyes, they seemed pensive. "It makes me proud, sometimes. Like a recurring reminder it was worth it." 

Levi fought back the doubt that her words conjured in him with practiced ease, and didn’t answer as he stubbed out his cigarette. He breathed out the rest of the smoke with his next words. "I’m getting the next round."

He took the empty bottles and crossed the small room of the former studio flat, carefully avoiding a big blotch of residual adhesive on the creaking hardwood floor. He had never understood the enthusiasm the GDR regime had fostered for drab linoleum. It probably had something to do with the need to drain all liveliness from places right down to the last drop. Levi left the empty bottles at the bar before walking out the main room and into a small corridor that connected three withered panel doors. The place wasn’t particularly clean, but at least it wasn’t as grubby as the run-down smelly taverns his father had used to drink himself to death in. Levi ignored the former kitchen that now served as a storage room, and opted for the next door that was labeled as the restroom. 

He nudged it open with a neat leather dress boot, and was greeted by darkness. With a sigh, Levi fumbled for the light switch next to the door frame and when he finally found it, a synthetic 

_Click_

resonated from the high ceiling above his head. Noxious white light nervously flickered into existence, imprinting the image of a phantom bathroom on his retina, the faint but persistent whirr of a neon tube echoing from hideous tiles on the walls. 

The sound stretched across his bare skin and easily sank beneath its barrier. It trailed along the smooth surface of his bones and let them oscillate in response, sending sensation- no, pure repugnance, all the way through his body. Suddenly, he could feel the ghost of grime on his face. His tongue twitched in his mouth like a slug, squirmed, writhed and winded in anticipation of a turning stomach. He drew in a deliberate breath before flipping the switch back off, using the faint light that travelled from underneath the panel door to finish. _Pathetic._ Then he scrubbed, scrubbed, scrubbed his hands clean in the small sink, and forced himself to ignore the moisture on the piece of soap, probably remnants of whomever had used it before. He used a paper towel to avoid touching the door handle on his way out.

Back in the small smoke-filled taproom, he ordered their drinks, but when the tall freckled girl working the bar turned to get the beers from the fridge, he changed his mind.

"Hey, flannel. Make that one beer and a double whiskey."

He was met with a bland stare. "Whatever you say, big guy." After some rummaging she slammed the drinks on the bar top. "Pay up, we don’t do tabs." Levi pulled a random bill from his jeans and tossed it in her general direction. "Keep the rest."

"That’s barely covering for the drinks but what the fuck ever, dude.", she said languidly and turned to serve the next guest without sparing Levi another glance. He didn’t bother with an answer, and took the drinks back to their table while carefully wiping all remnants of loathing from his expression. When he sat, he took a long drink from his glass to soothe the lingering nausea.

"What’s wrong?"

That was quick, even for Petra. 

"I’m fine, Ginger.", Levi said, utterly straight faced. He knew trying to deceive her was to no avail, but she humored him and didn’t pry. 

They spent the next couple of hours with the kind of comfortable on-and-off conversations that were reserved for year long friendships. Although Levi didn’t exactly strike as the social type, he did enjoy the company of certain people. He just preferred silence over dull small talk. At length, the guitar player leaned his instrument against the stool he was sitting on, and joined the group at the table before him. With the music, the frequency of patrons faded too, and eventually, the bar tender announced the last call. Levi and Petra were already enjoying a good end-of-the-week buzz, but got another round anyway before they headed out into the winter night. Levi turned up his collar against the prickling breeze and felt damp sleet lash at his undercut.

"You can come up and sleep on the couch if you like.", Petra said. "You shouldn’t drive."

"I wouldn’t drive that car with one too many coffees, don’t worry.", Levi answered before he nodded his head in the general direction of the bar. "I’ll ask them to call me a taxi."

Petra hugged him briefly and kissed his cheek. "Okay then. Give me a call if you feel like round two next week, okay?", and she giggled in his ear tipsily. "That was fun."

Levi patted her head with a gloved hand. "Sure thing, Ginger. You take care."

He watched her meander between parked cars on the curb, cross the small cobbled street and let herself into her apartment building. When he was sure she got home okay, even if it were just a couple of meters, Levi turned around and headed back toward the bar to ask for his taxi. When he opened the door, he saw the group that had been sitting at the bigger table come toward him through the small corridor, and he took a step back to let them past. The bar tender, who had obviously joined them, noticed him on her way out.

"We’re closing up now, don’t make me drag your thrifty ass out."

"You complaining about tips, that’s rich.", Levi scoffed, open door still in hand. "I was just going to ask for a taxi, but I guess the shitty service here wouldn’t bother." A lanky guy took the door from him to let his friends out, who were talking about some party they wanted to crash. The girl and Levi faced each other on either side of the entrance, and their fierce staring contest was only interrupted by a cheerful brown haired girl who had to awkwardly shuffle past them. The bar tender opened her mouth, probably to wish him a nice walk home, when a voice coming from the door to the taproom interrupted her. 

"It’s okay Ymir, don’t eat him alive, geez. I’ll call the damn taxi." Levi broke the competitive eye contact to see the guitar player standing in the corridor, gesturing for Levi to come back inside. 

"I’m not waiting for some rando’s ride to close up.", the girl, Ymir, said. "We’re leaving _now_."

"Just leave me the keys, I’ll lock the place up and come find you later."

"Are you guys coming or what?", someone called from a couple of meters behind Levi. "It’s fucking freezing!"

The longer Levi stood in the midst of annoying strangers, the more attractive the prospect of walking home through shitty weather became to him. He rolled his eyes and turned around to leave without another word, when he saw one of the guys leaning against a car - his car - on the sidewalk.

"You have _one second_ to haul your filthy ass off my car before I do it for you."

The tone in his voice had obviously been nothing short of menacing, because the guy held up his arms in obvious defense and took a step away from Levi’s car.

"Calm down man, not a scratch, see? All good."

Levi finally decided that the taxi ride wasn’t worth whatever pain in the ass this situation was, and waited a couple of minutes for the group to be in safe enough distance from his car before turning to walk in the other direction.

"Hey, wait up! What about your taxi?"

"Don’t bother.", he called over his shoulder, but heard hurried footsteps approach him on the pavement anyway.

"Don’t be stupid, I basically wrestled Ymir for the keys, and she’s freaking scary, let me tell you. Hey!"

The guy had finally caught up to him and faced him in his path. When Levi wouldn’t bother slowing down his pace, he started walking backwards. 

"Come on, it’s freezing out here."

"I’ll take that over a group of fucking brats drunk off their asses, thanks.", Levi said, but stopped anyway. The guy flashed him a smile that exposed a row of impeccable white teeth. "Yeah, they’re idiots sometimes. Especially Jean, sorry about your car by the way. That’s BMW 3.0 CS, right? Midnight blue. Beautiful."

Levi stared at him with a frown. "Yeah."

"Let me get you that taxi, come on.", the kid said and walked past Levi, back toward the bar. Levi followed him reluctantly, not actually the type to change his mind once he was peevish enough to tell people to fuck off. 

Back in the main room, the kid turned the light above the bar back on, and it created an orange halo in the otherwise dark room, a kind of warm mantle to encompass them. Levi took a seat on one of the bar stools and watched the kid call the taxi service over an old rotary phone while rolling a cigarette. He lit it when the kid hung up the phone and turned to open the fridge. 

"What do you drink? They said they’re pretty busy, shitty weather and all." 

Levi breathed out the smoke with a sigh. "Just a beer.", he said.

The kid took off his leather jacket, revealing broad shoulders under a plain t-shirt. A plaid flannel shirt was loosely wrapped around his hips, and his jeans were ripped at the knees. His hair was tied back in a loose bun, revealing a couple of ear piercings. A slim leather band hung around his neck, the pendant slipped and hidden beneath his shirt. All in all, he was a tall grungy 90s kid, probably into Nirvana. To Levi’s discontent, he pulled off the look a little too well. 

"I’m Eren.", he said as he slid Levi his drink and took a sip from his own, a ring on his pointer finger clinking against the bottle. His eyes were a ridiculously bright shade of green, and somehow that tugged at Levi’s insides. "Levi."

"So, Levi. Tell me about that car you won’t drive home tonight. You a mechanic?", Eren said and leaned over the counter on his elbows. Levi wasn’t sure if he was being flirtatious or just candid.

"It’s a hobby.", he said and took a sip from his bottle. "I treated myself to a decent car after being forced to drive that shit Trabant for years."

"You’re from the east then?", Eren asked.

"Obviously.", Levi said reluctantly around another drag of smoke.

"What was that like?"

Levi licked his lips. "I don’t want to talk about it." 

He expected the kid to pry, but Eren didn’t push it.

"I bought the BMW a couple of weeks after the wall fell. Got it up and running yesterday.", Levi added without knowing why.

Eren’s eyes shone when he smiled, and Levi stared back plainly, kind of unnerved and fascinated at the same time. "A whole year of tuning, that’s actually kinda cool." 

"Don’t sound so surprised, kid."

"Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.", Eren said and laughed, a carefree sound that briefly filled the room with life before it receded. "I play the guitar as a hobby.", he added and took a sip from his drink. Levi was just about to note that he really hadn’t asked, but changed his mind.

"Yeah, I figured. Heard you play earlier."

"Did you like it?" There was something infantile about the way Eren asked the question, something ingenuous. 

"Sure, why not.", Levi said despite himself. Eren turned toward the other end of the bar and popped a tape in the stereo sitting on a shelf next to the counter. "I listen to all kinds of music.", he said while fumbling with the amplifier. "I play at bars to earn some money on the side." When he was done, an electronic DJ set started playing over the speakers. "It’s a set that a friend of mine recorded at a club a couple of weeks ago."

"Trying to set some mood for that party later?", Levi asked indifferently. 

Eren answered with an impish grin. "Kinda, yeah. You into electronic music?"

"Not really.", Levi answered. He knew there were more or less legal clubs popping up in abandoned buildings all over the city, another symptom of the sudden relief of decades of forced inhibition. He didn’t particularly care for the kind of music, but he had enjoyed the forceful drum of bass buried deep inside his guts once or twice, before tumbling home the next day, high from mere abstraction and whatever chemicals had still swirled around in his system. "I get the gist of it though."

Eren seemed to like that thought and grinned. "You want another drink?", he asked. Levi was surprised to find his bottle empty already. "Sure." Eren pulled another two beers from the fridge and filled two shot glasses with Jägermeister before taking a seat on the stool next to Levi and touching glasses with him. 

"Back to square one.", Levi said when he had downed the shot.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, kid."

They sat in silence for a while, listening to the organic up and down of beats wafting from the speakers. It was an easy silence between them, aided by the alcohol and something else that Levi couldn’t quite pin down.

"Can I use some of your tobacco?"

Levi didn’t answer, just slid it toward him over the counter. Five minutes later, Eren lit a small joint and inhaled with a grin before holding it out to Levi, a questioning look on his face. 

Levi didn’t take it. "You got that grungy sunshine boy role nailed down don’t you?", he deadpanned. As if to prove his point, Eren’s lips curled into an impudent little smirk that let his eyes glint in the faint light. _Little shit._

"Says exhibit 'A’ of the whole I-don’t-give-a-flying-fuck-attitude.", and he encompassed Levi’s appearance with a vague gesture of his hand. Levi intensified his stare for good measure, but Eren’s eye contact wouldn’t falter. If anything, Levi could have sworn it only widened the brat’s grin. He sighed and took the joint. _Jesus fucking Christ._

"Jesus fucking Christ."

Eren just laughed his annoyingly nice laugh and leaned back on his elbows, facing the room. "A friend of mine started this whole thing three weeks ago. Wanted to try something new for once. He used to work the border patrol back in the day, but was mostly drunk off his ass all the time. I met him after the wall fell. He’s an all right guy, even for the kind of job that he had."

Levi said nothing, just grunted in response. He didn’t care for people who jumped the next best bandwagon, whatever wouldn’t be too much trouble for them.

Eren seemed to sense his reluctance towards the topic, so he dropped it. "I helped him build this place when we found it. ’Hey Eren, help me lever up this door?’, that’s how it started." Eren chuckled, a deep and playful little sound that bubbled from his throat. "We just wandered the streets, looked out for windows that wouldn’t light up for weeks on end, and made our pick. I dragged in all the tables and hung the lamps and stuff." 

Levi hummed in his throat. "It doesn’t suck."

Eren grinned wider. "I mean I don’t know you and all but that does sound like a compliment." Levi cocked an eyebrow and looked at Eren from the corner of his eyes. He was swaying his head lightly with the beat of the music, and his features were painted sharp against the dark backdrop of the room. He met Levi’s eyes when he handed him back the blunt. 

Levi’s skin tingled where Eren’s fingers touched his, probably from the alcohol, or the high, or from these ridiculous eyes. Levi was surprised to find he didn’t only not hate the place, he also didn’t hate the turn the night had taken, or the company. At all. 

Eren started blowing smoke rings. "You should ditch the taxi. Come to that party with me."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Already told you, drunk brats are annoying as shit. Don’t need a whole room full of them."

Eren cocked his head, and looked at him with that attitude of his. Levi felt the overwhelming urge to flick his forehead, just to put him in his place.

"Do you find me annoying?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

Again, Levi didn’t know if Eren was being flirty or just uninhibited. The combination threw him off, kinda, but then again, he was starting to feel a little high and couldn’t be so sure. He tried to asses it for a moment longer before he stumbled over his own line of thinking and caught himself. Eren chuckled on the stool next to him, and Levi barely managed to stop himself from joining in. He was indistinctly aware of his forehead smoothing out.

A bright headlight trailed over the back wall of the room, intermitted by the parallels of horizontal blinds and it briefly illuminated the corners of the bar concealed by darkness. It startled Levi, and his muscles tensed for a second, before Eren stood and peeked out between the lamellas covering the windows to the small street. 

"Your taxi’s here." He turned around, and when their eyes met, Levi shut down the urge to sink his teeth into the obvious pout that played around Eren's lips. Instead, he slipped into his jacket and took one last drag from the blunt before crossing the room and giving it back to Eren. The light that the car cast through the windows framed Eren’s broad shoulders and slim waist as if reminding Levi of what he ditched here, just in case he had forgotten. Still, the feeling of being at the mercy of something he couldn’t quite gauge was nothing he liked to welcome within the realm of his self control, so he didn’t follow through.

"Thanks for letting me wait here.", he said.

"Hope it wasn’t too annoying or anything.", Eren said, sulking a little too obviously.

"As I said, it didn’t suck."

"I play here every Thursday and Friday."

"Good night, kid. Tell your idiot friends I said hi."

And with that, Levi tugged a pre rolled cigarette behind his ear, and left the bar.

—

When Levi came to the office on Monday, an overenthusiastic receptionist welcomed him. 

"Welcome, Mr. Ackerman. I was told to escort you straight to Mr. Smith’s office, if you will."

Levi stared at the freckled boy and counted up to three in his head until the kid started fidgeting.

"My name is Marco Bodt. I’m the intern."

"Okay Bodt, we don’t know each other yet, so here’s the deal. I take my coffee black, and steaming hot the second I walk in here. You manage that, and I’ll think about giving you a task more worthwhile." 

"Of course, Mr. Ackerman."

They stood in the corridor for half a minute, muffled footsteps all around them. Levi waited impatiently until, "Oh! Yes, of course. This way, Mr. Ackerman."

Marco led him through dull corridors covered in grey carpet that seemed reserved for public authority buildings, and whoever had decided on that twenty or thirty years ago seemed to just stick with it. What the offices looked like behind the scenes stood in stark contrast to the impressive majestic exterior and foyer of the building. Levi wouldn’t admit it, but the venerable impression that was left on him whenever he wandered the public marbled corridors struck him with reverence. Taking part in something bigger than himself, an ideal that at least _some_ part of humankind tried to agree on, seemed like a dignified way to make himself useful. They took a left and ended in front of a plain office door, no different from any of the countless others that they had passed. The sign on the wall read

_Erwin Smith_  
_Head of prosecution_

"He’s waiting for you, Sir."

"Thanks. Now go get me that coffee.", Levi said as he opened the door. 

Erwin sat behind a huge corner desk in front of a window with vertical blinds, and raised a finger without looking up from his paperwork, silently asking for another moment of concentration. He was surrounded by scattered paperwork, following a kind of order only he could oversee. The walls of the small room were lined with large file cabinets, some of their doors standing slightly ajar where Erwin had obviously retrieved some files just recently. He signed a document with narrow curves, and filed it on a big pile of papers sitting at a corner of his desk.

"Levi! Welcome." He gestured for Levi to take a seat on the chair in front of his desk and leaned back in his own.

"It’s a good feeling to finally have you here with us.", Erwin said. "We have a lot on our plates, and good lawyers with a clean slate are rare these days."

"I know.", Levi said plainly. Strictly speaking, they both knew he wasn’t exactly a showpiece either, but at least he had never gone after anyone who hadn’t deserved it.

"Today, I’ll hand you over part of investigations, if that’s what you still want."

"It’s what I’m most experienced with.", Levi said firmly. 

"Your experience as a defense attorney will give us solid grounds of evidence before pressing charges, I’m sure. Let me show you your office. I’ll introduce you to your team afterwards." Erwin led the way through a different door than the one Levi had entered the room through, walking into the adjacent office that was slightly smaller than Erwin’s own. He flipped on the light switch and the room was plunged in warm white light.

"I had them change the neon tubes for light bulbs.", Erwin commented and opened a window to the street to let out the stale air. "Make yourself at home. I’ll have Marco bring you some files to get started with. Nothing too taxing for now, just a couple of police investigators who need their butts kicked so they’ll do their jobs."

"Sounds like a good start", Levi said, and Erwin showed him a forthcoming smile. "That’s what I thought. The superintendent’s offices are down the street. Prosecution’s investigations are just around the corner on this floor, but I’ll show you around later." Erwin went back into his own office, but turned around once more in the doorway, hand on the knob. "And Levi?"

"Yes."

"It’s good to have you around."

Five minutes into cleaning his desk, there was a tentative knock on Levi’s second office door leading to the corridor. 

"Come in!", Levi said and smoothed out his black slacks, then looked up to see Marco nervously standing in the doorway, towing a small trolley stacked with files, and a mug of coffee in hand. 

"Jesus kid, don’t just stand there all dressed up and nowhere to go. I won’t rip you in half."

Marco came in and placed the steaming mug on a coaster on Levi’s desk. Maybe the kid wasn’t so useless after all. He rolled the cart into an empty corner of the room.

"Is there anything else you need?"

"Yes, bring me the names and phone numbers of all detectives currently working my cases. Then another list with the same information on the prosecutors working on my team. And get me some decent cleaning agents. This place is a dump."

Marco nodded briefly and left. 

Levi spent the first half of the morning directing Marco around his office until he could see his reflection on every smooth surface. Then he dismissed the poor kid and cleaned the spots he had missed. The second half he flipped through the files that were waiting for him on the cart, and started bringing them into a meaningful order. Erwin was right, he was off to a smooth start with what he could tell from the cases alone. A couple of domestic abuse cases needed better documentation to withstand a shrewd defense, but nothing a little ass-kicking wouldn’t help with.

An hour into reading interrogation records, Erwin picked him up to meet his new team. They entered an open office space through a large double door where three men were working on piles of case files scattered over their desks. One of them, a tall blond who could use a haircut, was already dressed in his robe. He leaned over one of his colleagues’ desks to talk about evidence photos spread out on top. Erwin’s and Levi’s arrival let all three turn their heads, and Levi already didn’t like the conceited attitude of the one introduced as "…Auruo. This is Eld-", and Erwin let Levi shake the blond’s hand, "-and Gunther. This is Levi Ackerman. He was my partner in our law firm back in the day." 

There was a small pause, and Levi realized he was expected to say something. "It’s nice to meet you.", he said mechanically. "If you have any problems, please feel free to solve them yourselves."

The corners of Erwin’s mouth twitched, but the others didn’t seem to catch up to Levi’s sense of humor, not yet anyways.

"What Levi meant to say", Erwin jumped in, "is that he’s good with teams, and a great lead." He ignored Auruo’s scoff. "And one of best investigators I’ve seen work cases. We’ll profit from his intuition, I’m sure." 

Despite their skepticism, it was obvious how much the men trusted in Erwin’s judgement. His authority was radiant, a man not leading with his title, but with sheer clarity and assertiveness. Levi watched Auruo shrink a little, and Gunther and Eld both had a sharp and interested gleam in their eyes, which Levi deemed as a good sign. A little aversion and skepticism he could work with, actually welcomed them, as long as they were based on intelligence rather than trepidation. 

"Eld is actually on his way to the courtroom right now.", Erwin mentioned. "You could go see him work that armed robbery case against the odds."

The tall blond named Eld took Levi with him to the hearing, meandering through ramified corridors without the need to concentrate on where he was leading them. 

"Why is it a case against the odds?", Levi asked as they pushed open a massive double door and stepped into the beautiful marbled part of the court building. 

"You’ll see.", Eld answered. "Judge Weilmann can be tough to convince when there’s a shred of evidence he doesn’t trust entirely. Nervous guy. Very suspicious."

Eld hadn’t exaggerated. Weilmann had a way of raising his voice that was telling of how unsure he was of his authority. Eld did a surprisingly good job presenting the evidence and making use of the defendant’s criminal records, but to no avail. It was obvious the line of argument was impeded by some holes in the evidence, and Weilmann was much too nervous of making a wrong decision.

Levi spent the rest of the day reworking the case with the three of them, not to dwell on a lost case, but to learn about their line of thinking and to give his opinion on how a judge like Weilmann could be handled. He was still aware that he would have to earn their respect on a bigger case. For subordinates who didn’t know him, it was always hard to learn to trust in his intuition and instinct like he did himself. But once they did, and that was something else he could rely on, it created an iron bond of loyalty that would withstand all odds.

—

The week ended with a pile of new cases on his desk and a drink with Erwin who had unglamorously rolled his own chair into Levi’s office. They both leaned back, sleeves rolled up their arms and ties discarded on the coat hooks by the door. Levi had sent Gunther, Eld and Auruo home for the weekend about half an hour ago. The early darkness that lowered over the city in winter made it even harder to ignore the impending weekend, and Levi was genuinely impressed by the amount of work the three of them were willing to get done, especially on cases that involved any kind of violence. 

"So what do you think", Erwin asked, "about trading benches?"

"When you first told me you were going to take the post here and wanted me to join you I thought you were a sack of shit."

"Yes, you made that quite clear.", Erwin said, but there was no trace of venom in his voice. If anything, he sounded amused.

"I’ll admit I think you’re doing good work here. You could actually give this shit hole some of its dignity back. I got your back while trying, anyways."

"I’m glad to hear it, Levi. There’s too much dead wood in these halls, GDR judges keeping their posts, detectives who used to be with the Stasi. You know that’s the reason why there’s holes in the evidence, right? The reason Weilmann won’t inflict high fines on certain people. The reason I _need_ you here with me." Erwin’s deep voice rang in his ears. When he talked like that, there was really only one answer to give.

"I’m with you, Erwin."

"The system is rotten. Berlin’s struggling to shed its burden, wall or not." Erwin looked out the window behind Levi, as if the answer to his problems were to be found engraved in the house facade across the street.

Levi carefully rolled his next words around on his tongue before he spoke. 

"Anything on Isabel?" It sounded clipped. There was a sudden change in Erwin’s expression, and his stoic facade showed a rare crack.

"I tried, Levi. I really did. I know Hanji and Petra did. I called in quite a few favors in the past year, but there’s just nothing to go on. If there was one thing the Stasi was good at, it was being thorough."

Levi gave a curt nod, and stared down the bottom of his glass. If there was one thing he was good at, just one, it was to bury wrath, it was to blanket grief, and it was to stifle anguish. It was to fake control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I said in the beginning, I'd love to hear your feedback <3


	3. Bad Kingdom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **TW: This chapter contains a vague reference of attempted suicide.**  
>    
> From here on out, there will be graphic descriptions of crime scenes in some chapters. I won't include a specific warning of that before every chapter, so proceed with caution if that's something that unsettles you. Other TWs will be included though.

"The defendant has obviously no intention of taking the probation this court has granted him seriously. His probationer’s testimony has made that clear as day. Once again he was found lingering around subway stations, selling heroin to socially challenged _children_." Levi made an artistic pause in his pleading to let that sink in while considering the scum in the dock with a small disgusted curl of his lips. Then he made planned eye contact with judge Zackly. Levi proceeded to shifting his tone, made his voice sound cold and calculating as he moved forward. He didn’t make the mistake to assume Zackly was one to be impressed with sappy stories, and Levi planned on ending his speech with an aura of professional integrity, something he thought Zackly would much rather tend to. 

"We respectfully ask this court to remove the defendant from the streets, from the midst of our society, which he has so glaringly proven to be a threat to. Prosecution pleads six years and five months of imprisonment. Thank you, your Honor." Levi sat back down next to Auruo, who shot him a tense look. "That was good.", he whispered.

They proceeded to listen to a long sap story about the defendant developing a drug addiction after being kicked out by an abusive father at the age of seventeen from the defending lawyer. Levi had listened to his intuition to assess Zackly during the proceedings. His best guess was the defending lawyer had chosen a poor route with his plea, though Zackly was much too professional to let his expression betray him while he listened intently. Erwin had looked him up when they had heard he was the judge assigned to the case, and to Levi’s relief, Zackly was an experienced, rigorous and yet fair judge from the West. 

At length, Zackly announced he and the lay judges would take some time to advise, and Levi and Auruo went out for an early lunch. It had become easier to work with him over the past couple of weeks, although Auruo’s craving for recognition and overall bravado made Levi’s hand itch with the urge to smack him over the back of his head sometimes. In the courtroom though, the very same traits came in quite handy, as Levi had noted while watching him deal with cases a couple of times. Auruo was a charismatic and eloquent talker, with razor sharp arguments up his sleeve, and he made use of well played sarcasm at times which was risky, but highly effective when executed with rhetoric instinct. Levi had grown to appreciate his small team by now. Erwin had made sure to choose sincere and diligent lawyers to fill his ranks. 

When they were finally summoned back to the courtroom, Zackly not only accepted Levi’s motion, but added a whole year to the sentence. Auruo looked at Levi with an expression of open admiration for the rest of the day, and Levi knew then that he had finally won him over.

They had put behind them a whole week of consecutive hearings, and once the files were finally closed and sorted away in the archives, Levi sent his team home for an early weekend. Erwin and he followed suit half an hour later. For the first time in he didn’t know how long, Levi felt that he had taken an unsteady step back from the edge of a yawning abyss, away from the voices in its depth whispering sweet promises of the numbness he so craved. And that very night, they finally let him sleep.

That was, of course, until Levi was jerked awake by the shrilling ring of his phone echoing through his apartment from the living room. He groaned and turned to look at his alarm clock. 3:34.

"Who the fuck…"

He turned around and ignored the call, only to be pulled from his doze again two minutes later. He cursed, flung his legs over the edge of the bed and padded through the hall on bare feet. Then he yanked the receiver from the cradle.

"Ackerman."

It wasn’t as harsh as he had intended, rather drowsy. The voice on the other end though, sounded sober and alert.

"This is Erwin."

"What the fuck Erwin.", Levi growled and rubbed his face with the palm of his hand.

"I know it’s not your turn on standby, but I decided to call you anyway." He inhaled audibly. "There’s been a killing. I think you should have a look into it on scene."

"Can’t Auruo handle this and I’ll look into it on Monday?" Auruo was the prosecutor on duty this weekend. In case of a serious capital crime, prosecution were called in by the police to examine the crime scene first hand and take the lead in investigations if necessary.

"He could, but since you still need to take over your spot in the chain of command this would be a good chance without the bureaucratic back and forth.", Erwin said. "Make an appearance and look into it. Meet the detectives and monitor." He said it with an air of wariness. Levi knew Erwin didn’t trust the police any further than he could throw them.

Levi sighed and grabbed a pen and a small notepad. "All right. Give me the address."

Levi didn’t bother with official attire. He pulled on a pair of dark jeans, a plain shirt and his jacket before he pulled the door to his apartment shut, a cigarette hanging limply from his lips.

The address was located in Berlin-Tempelhof, a formally western district with many tall pre World War II apartment buildings lining the point blank main road that lead through the district. It wasn’t exactly one of Berlin’s shadier neighborhoods, but it certainly lacked the charm of others with more sophisticated architecture. It was home to the lower working class. 

Levi halted in front of an old apartment building that didn't stand out around the others. Still, there was no mistaking the address since there were about six police cars parked outside, blue lights switched on. Most of the windows were illuminated, much to the contrast of the rest of the road that lay in eery silence both ways. Levi noticed a couple of onlookers on the balconies that faced the streets. 

Levi got out of his car and approached the first police officer that he saw guarding the police line. A deep frown was carved on his face. He had probably drawn the short straw, standing outside at a few degrees below zero, hands buried in his pockets.

Levi briefly identified himself and slipped beneath the line. "Who is the detective in charge?", he asked.

"Detective Braun." The officer gestured towards the entrance of the building. "Third floor to the left."

Levi suppressed the urge to light another cigarette and entered the building. When he reached the third floor he noticed the door to the apartment on the right stood slightly ajar. He made a mental note to check on that later and opted for the door to the left. He identified himself to another officer, was given hygienic cloths to put over his shoes and let into the apartment. 

It was tiny. A small hall separated two doors that led to the kitchen and the only bedroom. Communal bathrooms were allocated on the intermediate levels of the staircase which was fairly common for cheaper apartment buildings, although Levi really didn’t want to think about it in too much detail. 

There were several people in white crime scene overalls standing in the bedroom that consisted of only a shabby single bed, a closet and a table with a chair. There was a tiled stove in the corner of the room, the fire long extinguished. The apartment was almost as cold as the outside.

Braun was a huge, broad shouldered man with small eyes who seemed to take conscious advantage of his intimidating aura. Levi on the other hand, being smaller than average, was used to looking up at people and he had long ago learned to not let that affect his affiliations. He didn’t yet have a specific reason to not trust Braun, but he was very observant to everything the detective told him when he led Levi into the crime scene. 

"Forensics just finished picking the place apart. The lock on the apartment door was picked.", Braun said with a calm, rumbling voice. "We’re still waiting for the coroner so we haven’t moved the body. If this is the victim’s apartment, which it probably is, his name is Dieter Ness." He looked at a small notepad in his hands. "Forty-three year old single male. This is how he was found. One of the neighbors called it in when she couldn’t get a hold of him for several days. We’re lucky it’s so damn cold in here, otherwise the smell would be even worse."

They shuffled past a few detectives and the photographer before Levi could get a full look around the scene. The victin was seated on a spartan wooden chair in the middle of the room, his head sunk to his chest. His hands were tied behind the backrest with a cable tie, his ankles laced to the chair’s legs. There was a large pool of already darkened blood on the hardwood floor, obviously stemming from the men’s head as his neck and what little Levi could see of his face were crusted with blood, too.

"Single shot to the back of the head as far as we can tell right now.", Braun said.

"Anyone talking to the neighbors?", Levi asked, businesslike. He had warded himself with detachedness before he had entered the room. It was a switch he managed to find easily.

"Only the one who called. I’ll have officers question the rest over the course of the following week.", Braun answered. 

Levi furrowed his brows. "Have it done by noon."

Braun visibly stiffened at the overruling of his authority and his eyes narrowed. "With all due respect, but it’s a weekend. I don’t have the manpower tonight."

"We’re here, aren’t we?", Levi said and looked at his watch, utterly unfazed. "My phone rang at 3:30 this morning, so whoever is needed can be here by 5am. I want the first reports on my desk by the end of the day." He didn’t leave any room for arguments. "Who called it in?"

"The girl next door. One of my people is questioning her right now." 

Levi remembered the open door on the other side of the landing. "I’ll listen to what she has to say. Notify me as soon as the coroner is here."

"It’s not common for prosecutors to take active part in investigations." Braun had the nerve to say. "I’d appreciate it if you let my people do their work and wait for the reports."

Levi’s stare pinned him to the wall. "Whatever case files I’ve seen on my desk so far were holey as a fucking sieve, Braun. So spare me the bullshit before I can actually work with what you give me. Until then, this will be a pain in the ass for the both of us as far as I’m concerned."

Levi saw something lethal seethe behind Braun’s eyes before he answered. "Looks like it, doesn’t it?", he said and held Levi’s stare for a couple of seconds before he turned away. "We’ll get you as soon as the coroner’s here."

Levi wasn’t entirely sure whether or not it was in his best interest to act as blunt as he just had. On the other hand, if there was any chance to have distinct fronts from the get go, he’d choose that over the uncertainty of false pleasantries anytime. He could live with openly aired reluctance. Dishonesty and sloppiness he wanted to weed out as soon as possible, though. 

He entered the opposite apartment and noticed the layout was the exact same, only mirrored. There were voices coming from the bedroom and Levi entered quietly and without preamble. He stood in the back and said nothing until the witness had finished her thought. 

"…when I noticed the weird smell."

She was young, maybe nineteen or twenty at most. The room was arranged with more thought than its equivalent in the apartment next door. There lay a colorful woven rug on the floor and strings of lights hung on the wall over the small bed she was sitting on. Text books were scattered over a desk in front of the window that faced the street. 

Her eyes twitched over to Levi in the corner of the room and the detective that questioned her turned around in her chair to follow the witness’s gaze with a questioning look. She looked devious, was the first thing that Levi noticed about her. 

Levi decided to soften his expression and voice in order to not jar the witness. He pulled out the desk chair and rolled it to sit next to the detective. "Miss, I’m Levi Ackerman, the prosecutor on this case. I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’d like to listen to what you have to say. It was something about a smell?" 

"Uhm, yes.", the witness said. She didn’t look particularly shaken, other than what a serious crime scene next door would induce. "Yes, I called because I noticed the smell when I got home tonight."

"So you were out earlier?", the detective asked.

"I had a couple of drinks with friends, but I went home when they went to a club. I have an exam on Monday."

"Did you know Mr. Ness well?"

"Not particularly. He greeted me when we met. He was nice."

"You told the operator on the phone that you hadn’t gotten a hold of him for the past couple of weeks."

The witness was hasty with her next answer. Levi noticed she obviously didn’t want to leave a bad impression, probably because she wasn’t used to talking to the police in the first place. "Yes, I accepted a parcel on his behalf the other day. About two and a half weeks ago, maybe? I rang his doorbell like every other day since then, but he wouldn’t answer. I thought maybe he was on a holiday."

"Have you noticed anything unusual during that period of time? Met anyone you didn’t know in the house? Strange noises from Mr. Ness’ apartment or anything like that?", the detective asked.

"No, nothing. Do you think I met the person who did this and didn’t even notice?" Her face contorted at the though. "That’s horrible. I-" Obviously, the events of the night slowly started creeping up on her. Levi wasn’t surprised. Often, witnesses would only realize what had really happened when they started talking about the details, stirring their thoughts in the process.

"We can’t know that, Miss.", he said, voice calm. "If you remember anything in the next couple of days though, I want you to call Detective…?"

"Dreyse.", the detective said with a quirky little smile.

"Right. Detective Dreyse.", Levi said. "It wouldn’t be uncommon for an important memory to come back to you, now that you started thinking about things from a different perspective. So please give Detective Dreyse here a call in case that happens. Do you have someone you can stay with tonight? It's best to not be alone after experiencing something like this."

"I could stay at my parents’ house. But I’ll be okay, I think."

"All right. If you change your mind, please don’t hesitate to tell us as long as we’re here. I’ll have one of my people drive you there safely.", Levi said. 

"Thank you.", the witness answered timidly.

"Please make sure we can reach you over the phone during the next couple of weeks in case we have any further questions.", Dreyse said. "You made a good decision, calling this in when you did." She stood and handed her a card. "Good night, Miss. Thanks for your help."

Levi followed her outside, and they stood on the small landing between the two apartment doors. 

"I don’t think we’ve met?", Dreyse said with a sly undertone. Levi wasn’t sure if it was just her nature or whether she did it to piss him off deliberately.

"Levi Ackerman. Prosecutor.", he said tersely. "So what do you think?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary, I guess.", Dreyse answered, but the small smile didn’t leave her lips when she spoke. "She seemed genuine enough. It’s weird that she didn’t hear anything though. We need to question the other neighbors, and soon."

 _Maybe she’s not so bad._ , Levi thought. "I’ll be in touch.", was what he said.

"Oh, I’m sure.", Dreyse answered, and Levi honestly didn’t know how to take that.

_BANG_

They were startled out of their conversation by a noise a couple of levels below.

"Oh, sorry, haha! A little too enthusiastic there, that happens sometimes." The voice travelled up the staircase and reached Levi’s ears as if the person was standing right next to him. He pinched the bridge of his nose. 

"It’s 5am, Hanji. Fucking tone it down a notch." He was standing next to her, back at the crime scene. Hanji was investigating the body thoroughly, speaking her every thought into a small dictaphone. 

"I’m a pathologist, Levi.", she answered brightly. "It’s my job to be excited about this stuff." She stood in front of the victim, making sure to avoid the big blotches of blood and pieces of insides on the floor. It all didn’t seem to bother her, judging by the enthralled look on her face. She carefully nudged the man’s head back with the end of a ballpoint pen. Levi narrowed his eyes as he looked at the victim. Something tingled in his memory. "What was his name again?" 

"Neiss, Dieter. Single shot through the head, probably from the back.", Hanji noted. "No signs of other physical harm, except for the binds of course. No, wait." 

She crouched and looked at the victim’s bare feet. "Hm."

"What is it?", Levi asked and kneeled next to her.

"Can’t be too sure.", she said. "I need to look at it more closely at the morgue." Hanji lowered her head until her nose almost touched the corpse’s leg. "The feet are bloated. It could be from the bonds, but maybe that’s not all there is to it."

She stepped back and looked at Levi, her face suddenly serious in a way that Levi only rarely saw.

"What do you think?", she asked.

"Planned.", Levi said. "This wasn’t on impulse."

"Right", Hanji agreed. "I’m no expert on psychological stuff, but… A single shot to the head, and then what? The killer just left? Like business was done?"

"It feels systemic.", Levi said calmly, but mostly to himself while he was looking at the victim. There was something about his face that just didn’t sit right with him.

Hanji circled the body shamelessly and weighed her head in thought. "There’s no emotion. It’s a murder, yes, but it lacks impulse. Why?" She looked up at Levi, and he met her eyes. It took a few seconds for the dumb feeling in his guts to pierce his consciousness and form into a coherent thought. The second it came to him, he knew he was right.

"Because it was an execution."

—

When Levi stepped back onto the street, the sun had risen behind a monochrome cloud cover and plunged the dirty concrete of Berlin’s streets in cold light. He lit a cigarette. A transporter had been let through the police barriers and the victim’s remains were stored in the back in a bag before it drove off. The smoke Levi exhaled mixed with his condensed breath in the cold and rose above his head in a thick cloud before in diffused.

"I’ll get to look him over later today.", Hanji chimed happily when she stepped on the curb next to Levi. Her eyes gleamed at the thought before she regarded the dark circles under Levi’s eyes with some concern. "You look like hell Levi. Go get some sleep."

"Tch." Levi didn’t do well sitting there with his hands in his lap. Sometimes he wondered if he would have been better off becoming a cop, but then again he would have rather thrown himself off a bridge than become a cog in the system back when he had had the choice.

"I know.", Hanji said with appreciation, one of three people in the world able to read him like an open book. "Let me do my job. I’ll call you."

"It’s not you who I think won’t do her job.", Levi said warily and eyed an officer ringing one of the doorbells on the next door building. As much as Hanji’s mannerisms threw him off sometimes, he had never once doubted the sincerity she mustered when taking care of things she really put her mind to. It was one of the things that made her so reliable, despite her fluster. _Fucking weird ass nerd._

Levi drove home after that, but once there, he knew trying to sleep was laughable. He made tea and decided to call Erwin to let him know how it had gone.

"Who’s in charge?", Erwin asked while Levi was seated on the armchair next to the small table that hosted the phone in the living room. 

"Braun.", he answered. "I don’t know what to make him. He seems capable, but that doesn’t necessarily seem like a good thing somehow."

"He comes from a long line of faithful party members.", Erwin said. "Joined the basic police force in the GDR and made detective before the wall fell. He’s sharp. I’m not so sure about alternative motives though."

"I’ll keep an eye on him.", Levi promised and looked at the notes he had made in a small ring binder. "Then there’s this Dreyse. One of the few officers who seem to be good for something as far as I could tell."

"I haven’t worked with them yet.", Erwin answered. "But anyone who’s trustworthy is a valuable asset."

"Don’t know about that. There was something about her. Sly little fuck. Sharp, too.", said Levi, remembering the look in her eyes when they had talked on the staircase. He took a sip from his tea and stifled a yawn.

"Go to sleep Levi. There’s nothing to be done right now anyways."

"You sound like the nutcase."

"Hanji was there?", Erwin asked with newly roused interest. 

"Yeah, she’s the pathologist on the case. Why?"

"That’s good news, Levi", said Erwin, and Levi could hear him rummage in his kitchen, probably pouring himself a cup of coffee. He had one of those new cordless phones, _Fucking waste of money_. "I’m glad there’s one person working the case that we can be rely on. Has she found anything on scene?"

"Nothing worth mentioning yet. Said she would call me when she got to taking a closer look though.", Levi said and images of the scene flashed through his mind.

"What do _you_ think though?", Erwin asked attentively.

"I’m not sure.", Levi said truthfully. "There’s something about it that’s just not sitting right with me. I just can’t point my finger to it." He thought back to the victims face, crusted with blood and his lips curled. "I’ll read through the first reports tonight. Maybe there’s something in there."

"You’re getting the first reports _tonight?_ ", Erwin asked incredulously. "Auruo, Gunther and Eld told me they’d need to wait weeks for Braun to bother sending them anything."

"You specifically told me to kick a few asses, Erwin.", Levi answered dryly and finished his tea. 

"Yes, well I wouldn’t have taken Braun’s ass to be kicked easily.", Erwin said and for the first time there was a trace of amusement in his voice. "How do you feel on the job?"

"It’s fine, Erwin.", Levi said indifferently. "I had to get my ass back up eventually."

"It’s a good thing you took a break though.", Erwin said, and his voice was stern again. "Are you still seeing Pixis?"

"Once a week", Levi said. "He approves of the job though. Says it’ll be good for me to take the chance and do something fulfilling again or some shit." If it had been anyone other asking the question, Levi would have told them to fuck off without batting an eye. But Erwin wasn’t one to be denied the truth, damn him. After all, he had been the one to finally scrape Levi off the bathroom floor.

*

 _Levi. Give me that._ Erwin had always had a way to make his voice boom like thunder without the need to actually raise it. 

Levi, in turn, hadn’t moved, the back of his head pressed to the cold tiles of the bathroom wall, eyes shut.

Deft fingers had finally eased his grip. 

_Take this._ , Erwin had said to another person Levi hadn’t known was also there. Slowly, he had opened his eyes to catch a glimpse of Hanji taking the gun and leaving the room, a telling shimmer in her eyes that was, for once, non-related to her usual antics. Opening his eyes had made Levi dizzy though and he had started to dry heave, barely making it over to the toilet on all fours in time. 

_Enough, Levi._ , Erwin had said with the low ring of protective authority while rubbing soothing circles on his back, a gesture far more intimate than what Levi was comfortable with. _Enough._

*

The memory clogged his throat. "I’ll keep you posted.", Levi said tersely. 

He managed to sleep a couple of hours after the call, and made it over to the court building later that night, just in time for the first faxes rattling in through the copying machine. He sorted the interview reports into neat piles on his desk, made himself some coffee and got to work.

It was nearly eleven when the phone on his desk rang. On the way from the cradle to his ear, he could hear flustered blabbering from the receiver. 

"You’ll need to say that again, four-eyes.", Levi said and tucked the phone between his shoulder and ear, turning a page in the report he was studying. He stifled a yawn and took a drink from his sixth cup of coffee.

"I just finished looking at our friend.", Hanji said. "Get over here. You need to see this."

Levi sat back in his chair and started tapping on the report with his pen absentmindedly. "If this is just some funny little tattoo, I swear to God…"

"What? No, that's not…no. We know him, Levi."

Thirty seconds later, Levi got his coat from the hanger by the door.

He took the BMW to the hospital that hosted the morgue. The elevator halted in the basement and he followed the signs to the back of a brightly lit hallway, pushing through a huge metal swing door on his way. When he finally found Hanji in her tiny cluttered office, she greeted him brightly and escorted him to the morgue, handing Levi tiger balm to daub under his nose against the smell.

Ness’ remains were draped on one of several metal tables in the middle of the large room. Levi took a steadying breath in the presence of the bright light that keyed the room. The two of them stood around the table, and Hanji lifted the cloth that covered Ness’ face. Levi looked closely. 

It took him a long moment to make sense of the odd feeling of recognition that again crept up on him when he looked at the body. The process was additionally hampered by the cleaned up bullet wound on the forehead, and the mask-like expression that death had lent to the face. It felt like seeing someone from far across the street and for the life of him not being able to remember where he had met the person before. Levi felt Hanji’s eyes rest on him eagerly, waiting for a reaction.

Then it hit him, and his eyes grew wide for the tiniest moment before he looked at her.

"No fucking way."

"I know." She looked absolutely thrilled. Levi didn’t share the sentiment. Somehow, everything seemed further away for a second, like he was looking at Hanji through a fogged window.

"I got this weird feeling when I cleaned up his face, but I didn’t recognize him until his mother came in to identify him." She patted the corpse’s shoulder as if talking about a friend that was standing next to them. Levi grabbed her hand. "Stop it, you weirdo."

Then he took a sobering breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. "When?", he asked. Hanji shrugged. "I think he was one of the ones in our first year or so. No wonder we didn’t recognize him at first."

"Shit.", said Levi with an exasperated scowl. "What was that about his mother?"

"We smuggled her a couple of months after him. I think he went first to make sure it was safe. You should have seen the look on her face when she saw me. I mean, before we got to…", Hanji made a vague gesture towards the body and her smile disappeared. "She is such a nice lady. It’s a shame."

Levi thought of the shabby apartment that Ness had lived in. "So what’s the story here? He made it over the border with our help, lived a free life for a couple of years, minding his own business. Then someone breaks into his apartment and blows his fucking brains out for no reason?" Everything about it felt off.

"I’ll leave the storytelling to you, but there’s more stuff that I found.", Hanji said. "Remember the swelling in his feet?" She didn’t wait for an answer. Her eyes had started to glow more and more while she spoke. "That’s not all there is to it. His hands were swollen too, and I would guess he spent quite some time tied to that chair before he died. Cut off his blood stream." Hanji circled the table and came to a halt at the feet where she pulled the cloth away and exposed the body to the cold atmosphere of the room. "But the degree of the swelling in hands and feet doesn’t match." 

"His feet were tied longer than his hands?", Levi asked.

"That’s what I first thought, too. But look at the skin here." She pointed at one of his blue tinted toes. "It’s all wrinkly. His feet were exposed to water long enough for the skin to soak."

Levi furrowed his brows. "Why the hell would his feet be soaked in water?" 

"I have no idea.", Hanji admitted. "It’s exiting though." A little laugh hiccuped from her throat and Levi once again asked himself how he was the one seeing a fucking therapist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I'll be so thankful for your feedback or your kudos in case you enjoy reading this. It's literally the only thing I feed on as an author lmao. That click means a whole lot more than you prob think :) Anyways.
> 
> **Next up: more Ereri**


	4. Loreley

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup, I changed the title of the story, I never rlly liked it in the first place and after staring it down for a solid 3 weeks I thought wth

Later that night, Levi leaned against the driver’s door of his BMW, and smoked his second cigarette when he saw the lights in the bar go out. He hadn’t really spared coming back here a thought until he had finally been home after his visit to the morgue, feeling stirred and restless. He had tried sleeping for a long while, rolling back and forth underneath the covers, kicking them off and pulling them back, dozing off just to be jerked awake by another looming shadow scurrying through his mind. He had tried opening the door to his bedroom even wider, lain back down, turned around, dozed and woken up again just to make a redundant trip to the bathroom. Lain down again, looking at the mocking red digits on his bedside table, rubbing the heels of his hands against his forehead in frustration. At length, he had decided he’d fucking had it and had finally given in to insomnia wrenching him out of bed for another night of agonizing consciousness. Another hour of sitting in the darkness on his sofa, too tired to function, yet too awake to sleep, his apartment had started to contract around him. It had grown smaller and smaller until being merely suffocating, and then, it had ruthlessly spat him out onto the street.

The door to the bar opened, and Eren stepped out on the sidewalk followed by the moody bartender and a tiny blonde whose laugh sounded so featherlight it made Levi’s heart ache. At length, after the group had exchanged a couple of playful jabs, Ymir was the first to spot Levi waiting on the curb. When she recognized him, she rolled her eyes hyperbolically and tossed the keys she had ready in her hand towards Eren, who barely managed to catch them. 

"Ymir, what-", he said, perplexed, but Ymir had already flung her arm around the small blonde’s shoulders and started walking off in the other direction. 

"Just pay for your fucking drinks this time.", she said and flipped them off over her shoulder. Eren looked baffled, and maybe also a little helpless. 

The corners of Levi’s mouth twitched. "You know, she’s kind of starting to grow on me.", he said into the void.

Eren was still staring in the general direction of Ymir’s exit, and didn’t immediately turn his head. He just closed his eyes and huffed a small laugh before he looked at Levi, who suddenly felt the hollow in his chest be filled with something he couldn’t quite pinpoint.

"You could have come inside, you know.", Eren finally said. "Instead of freezing to death out here."

Levi exhaled his last breath of smoke and flicked away his cigarette. "Maybe I wanted to catch you alone." There was no insinuation in his tone. It sounded like a fact because it was.

Eren’s eyes widened just the tiniest bit before the tentative tilt of his lips turned into a full fledged smile that revealed the whiteness of his teeth. 

\---

Back inside the bar, they sat next to each other on stools, just like they had the last time. It felt familiar in a way that easily contradicted how little they actually knew each other.

"You didn’t really strike me as the spontaneous type.", Eren said at length.

"And how would you know?", Levi deadpanned. "We’ve known each other for what? Five minutes?"

Eren seemed to unexpectedly take Levi’s words to heart, or so it seemed, as his fingers started working the label of his beer bottle with and he avoided Levi’s eyes. 

"Yeah, I guess. Whatever." The tone in his voice was so annoyingly obstinate, it would have made Levi get up and leave, weren't it for the gravity around the kid that seemed impossibly higher than what laws of nature would suggest. So instead, Levi heard himself say, "You enjoy that party you went to?"

"It was all right. My sister kicked Jean’s ass for taking a beer he didn’t pay for when we went out for cigarettes. So that was fun to watch."

"Sounds like one lame fucking party.", Levi said, just because. 

"Oh yeah because you could judge, sitting here at a lonely bar at 3am.", Eren retorted, and he sounded a little too cheeky for Levi’s liking.

"Kid, I got wasted on watery Russian beer and secretly listened to western radio stations when you were still in elementary school."

"I can’t even begin to say how lame _that_ sounds."

"Whatever.", Levi said and took a sip from his pils. "It did taste like shit though.", he added somewhat pensively, and turned the bottle in his hand. And there it was again, a laugh that lit a spark in lucid green eyes and filled the room to the point of bursting, before it trickled away in its corners like the tide.

Then Eren went still, and he seemed to weigh his head in thought for a moment before coming to a conclusion. It was all very obvious on his face. Levi could trace Eren’s every expression with a clarity he wasn’t used to, wouldn’t have _dared_ to show for a long time. 

"Come on then.", Eren said and took their half empty bottles to stash away somewhere behind the counter.

"Still not in the mood for whatever you and your friends are up to on the weekends.", Levi said around a deep scowl.

"And what if it was just you and me?", Eren said, unfazed. "Would you still be so reluctant to have some fun?"

Levi’s face didn’t change in the slightest, was carved from stone, and he did have half a mind to just get up and leave. But this time, he just couldn’t bring himself to it.

"I’ll pick where we go though, brat. And don’t think for a second this is to prove anything to you."

"All right, all right.", Eren said and held up his hands in fake defensiveness, scoffing smile still infuriatingly in place. "Whatever you say, Captain."

They left the bar, and when they walked past his BMW, Levi made a mental note to just come here by taxi next time, if there ever was one. 

They wandered through the streets of Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, many narrow point-blank avenues, equally lined by lordly old buildings and yawning sites that war had torn before either of them had been born. Ravages of history were still imprinted on the old apartment buildings. Once beautiful facades were scattered with unpatched bullet holes and chunks of old paint that peeled from grey abrasive stone. On top of that, people had smeared graffiti, or put up posters to complete the grimy urban clusterfuck. On nights like this one, when it was too cold for people to be out on the streets, and he walked along vacant buildings with broken windows, Levi could have sworn the city _breathed_ around him. It expanded its chest with a deep, primal inhale, the first in decades really, pumping oxygen through its lifeless limbs. It transformed all around him, and sometimes he felt like if he wouldn’t hold on to something, it would sweep him right off his feet.

They turned a corner and passed an open house entrance that spilled pumping bass onto the street. People stood in the grubby, but once majestic lobby of the abandoned apartment building and smoked. Most of them were dressed in neon colors. That was all Levi could see from the corner of his eyes before they walked past, deeper into the district. It was a lawless place, still wrapped in the void that existed between former authorities that had lost their power and whatever the democratic system that was in the making would look like. It was lawless, but it was also peaceful. People were finally claiming what was meant to be theirs all along, and they claimed it by an overall comprehensive measure that merely exceeded the need for territorial behavior or violence. They claimed it with music, they claimed it with rapture, and yes, they claimed it with what some of them would have called love. Levi didn’t exactly buy into that chemically induced bullshit, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t enjoy the shady atmosphere and the overall sense of escapism that existed in its twilight every now and then.

Levi finally came to a halt in front of a half blind shopping window that still displayed dusty naked mannequins, only illuminated by the dim light that the street lamp shed over their heads. Most of them were incomplete, missed limbs, heads, or had chipped noses, their bulging eyes staring them down with perpetual indifference. Levi pulled a pre-rolled cigarette from behind his ear and lit it, the flame ghostly lighting up his face from a low angle. He exhaled. 

"We’re here."

"Great, this doesn’t look creepy at all.", Eren commented wryly and took the cigarette from Levi’s hand. He inhaled once and handed it back to him. Levi curled his lips but said nothing. 

"What now?"

"What do you think?", Levi replied. "We go in."

They stepped into a narrow outer mall that led the way between the shopping windows of two adjacent stores. When they turned a corner, they could see a small group of people being let into an elevator by a bouncer that objectively didn’t look all that intimidating, but yielded an invisible power that was lended to him only by his position. Levi and Eren came to a halt before him, and let him muster them briefly before he made a general gesture of approval. Levi could sense Eren's curiosity, and it satisfied him to see the kid’s overall bravado falter a little. 

They paid the entrance fee and stepped into the metal-cladded elevator that had once belonged to the abandoned department store. Levi pressed a button for the underground levels before the doors rattled shut. He was distinctly thankful for the thing being so old that the whirr of neon tubes over their heads was easily drowned by the mechanic sounds of their descend. When they had almost reached the first underground level, the piercing white of light had made his shoulders tense though. Another five seconds passed, and slowly, a rhythmic boom started bleeding though the elevator doors. 

"Woah.", Eren said when they could feel it vibrate underneath their feet, and he held out his hands as if trying to touch the thickening atmosphere around them. 

A playful grin split his face in half when Eren raised his eyes. There was a bright gleam dancing inside the green of their irises, luring in their depths like iridescent bait. Several seconds stretched by and slowly, Levi felt himself be seized and buried by the seething current that he stared into, paralyzed and enchanted. It washed away some part of him he hadn't known was even there. It shook the very ground beneath his feet, aided by the thrumming bass, and their descend. 

With a jolt, the elevator halted, and just like that, something latched into place between them. It was definite, and irreversible, Levi realized, and it carried with it the force of a hundred raging tides. Eren must have felt it too. He hitched a small breath, and closed some more of whatever little distance was between them. Anticipation bloomed on Levi’s skin as he raised a hand to rake his fingers through tendrils of dark hair. 

The elevator doors opened with a ding and gave way to the echoing pace of techno music. Eren’s eyelashes fluttered for a second, and he bit his bottom lip, just so, before he chuckled, and it was in that precise moment hat Levi realized he was _fucked_. Without a word, Eren took his hand from where it had halted mid-motion, and led them out of the elevator, into their night.

They stepped into the defunct underground parking garage that had once hosted the cars of the mall's customers. Now though, it was one of the many places that formed a hotbed for the shenanigans of the city's creative residents. Levi watched while Eren let wide eyes sweep over the yawning space that lay in front of them. Everything was illuminated with different colors of dim spotlights lining the concrete walls sprayed with graffiti. A couple of artists were working on a new colorful piece in one of the corners, surrounded by spectators sipping on their drinks. 

The level they had landed on hosted the bar on the far end too, about 30 meters away from the elevators. Resting on the former parking spaces to their right, there was an entire self-built cinema, complete with three ranks of seats on a wooden cradle and an improvised screen that someone had stretched between two poles that were anchored into the ground. Colorful cartoons were being displayed in a quick time lapse, the only obvious goal of the installation being visual stimulation for certain party goers. The music that travelled down the concrete ascend from the dance floor would have drowned any kind of true content anyways.

All in all, the place was a little too extra for Levi's taste, but he certainly couldn’t deny its atmosphere. Whoever had decided to open a club here had surely taken that into consideration, as well as the meters thick concrete walls that kept the waves of ear splitting music inside so they wouldn’t be discovered by the authorities anytime soon. Well, technically they had, but Levi didn’t give two shits about his role as a prosecutor when it came to this.

They walked towards the bar, easily avoiding bumping into the people scattered across the abandoned garage, drinks in their hands and swaying to the rhythm of music while talking. The openness of the space and the possibility to avoid accidentally being touched by strangers was another reason Levi had picked the place.

Eren had let go of Levi’s hand, but he still led them to the bar. When he turned to face Levi after shouting their order into the bar tender’s ear over the music, the gleam in his eyes lacked none of its intensity. Levi fought a shudder that tried to crawl up from the base of his spine. When they were served their drinks - no, one drink - Eren took the glass and tugged at Levi’s sleeve to lead them through a heavy metal door he had obviously spotted a couple of meters away from the bar.

They found themselves in a narrow stairwell that connected the different levels of the underground garage. It was only illuminated by dozens of thick candles someone had placed up and down at the end of every other step. Every centimeter of the old ticket machine standing in the corner forlornly was covered in graffiti. Eren let the door fall shut behind them, and it was with a definiteness that made Levi turn around and look at him.

Whatever had unfurled between them in the elevator, they had taken with them, Levi realized, when Eren looked at him under heavy lashes in the flickering warm light. Levi though had recovered his self-composure, and he placed a measured step to retrieve the proximity between them. He kept his expression level while looking Eren in the eye and taking the drink from his hand. When their fingers touched, he was rewarded with a tiny little heave in Eren’s chest. He took a sip.

"Water?", he said and raised a thin brow.

Eren’s smile was impish when he took the glass back from him to put it on one of the steps. Levi didn't bother relinquishing their proximity so quickly, and Eren's shoulder brushed his chest. He could see lean muscles work underneath the soft skin of Eren's neck and made a mental note to find out what they felt like underneath his touch.

Eren looked at him and shrugged. "Well, you know. I thought we could make use of the fact that we came here sober."

He smiled sheepishly when pulled out a little metal box from the pocket of his jeans and removed the lid before he it out to Levi. There were two pills in it, bright blue and most certainly just as fun as Eren’s expression betrayed.

"We planned on sharing them and listen to music at Ymir’s tonight, but I guess that’s off the table now.", Eren said. "We don’t have to, though.", he added quickly.

Levi took some time to shoot him an appraising look. He couldn't deny that something pulsed in his veins whenever he looked at Eren. Every now and then it almost boiled to the surface before it seeped lower again and simmered in his guts until he almost forgot it was even there. It was plain attraction, he suddenly realized, and it was also exactly what he needed. It was probably even what he had been looking for when coming back to the bar tonight, but he didn't permit himself that thought.

"I only take half of what I don’t know.", he said. 

Eren’s smile widened, and he cocked his head a little when he watched Levi take one of the pills to bite it in half. Suddenly, an expression crossed Eren’s face in the half shade.

"Hold on just a second" 

His voice had dropped an octave so it would fit in the confines between them, and he touched Levi’s hand, telling him to wait. "There’s another thing I want to try out while sober." 

And just like that, he dipped his head and locked their lips. There was no hesitation, no tentative back and forth to test the waters. They moved in tandem immediately, and Levi wasted no time to _finally_ bury his fingers in that messy hair, to tug and pull them closer together, and _holy shit_ , he thought, _this is it_. 

Eren was intoxicating. He answered the pull on his hair with an appreciative hum in the back of his throat and let himself be pushed back, flush against the door. Levi felt fingers roughly dig into the muscles around his shoulder blades when he pressed his chest against Eren’s and swiped his tongue across the soft flesh of his pout. Eren willingly parted his lips to meet it with his, teasing Levi for a moment before the corners of his mouth twitched and he sank his teeth into his bottom lip. Levi hissed, and let his leg slide between Eren’s thighs to gain some leverage. Then, with a slow, painfully controlled motion, he further pulled Eren’s head back on his hair before Eren let go and smiled down on him. 

"A little cheeky there, are we?", Levi murmured as he let his mouth sink to Eren’s throat, letting his teeth graze over the flutter of his pulse point and taking time to suck a little bruise to full bloom right underneath a sharp collar bone. Eren's breath became faster, and he writhed underneath Levi's hold, just enough to make this interesting. Levi still loosened his grip and let his mouth hover over Eren’s skin. "Is this okay for you?"

"Yeah", Eren breathed, voice low and dark and just a little out of it. "I like that." He swallowed thickly.

Levi could feel his own breath come a little shorter now, his heart pump a little faster. Eren huffed a dark little laugh, and Levi felt his voice vibrate on his own lips when Eren said. "I had a feeling you could handle it."

"Hmm.", Levi breathed against the skin of Eren’s neck, and pressed his leg just that much tighter until Eren’s hips bucked to seek more friction. "Let’s see about that." 

Levi lifted his gaze and raked his hand up between their bodies to tug the pill between his front teeth. Then he let their lips meet again, more careful this time, and waited.

Eren took his sweet time now, gently nibbled on Levi’s lips and soothingly swiped his tongue over the indents that he had left. He hooked his fingers on the hem of Levi’s jeans and pulled him closer before playfully flicking his tongue, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Levi bit down on the pill and let Eren collect one half with a languid, open mouthed kiss. Then they broke apart, reluctantly, and shared the water to flush down the bitter taste in their mouths.

They kissed again, as if to seal a little secret that they shared now, and Levi could already feel that cloud his senses like the harbinger of what was still to come. Lips still sealed, Eren grew more playful and grinned before he reached behind himself to open the door and stumbled backwards with a laugh.

They waited at the bar for about half an hour until the first light headedness settled in, but made sure to not get comfortable enough to just stick with their surroundings. At length, they walked up the battered concrete of the ascend, and the first thing that Levi noticed about his high was just how astonishingly out of place that felt, given the purpose the garage had once been built for. 

"Levi?"

The sound of his name slowly pulled him from his spell, and he registered he had stopped half way up the ascent to follow his line of thought, or rather the emotions that his surroundings conjured in him. He looked up and felt vaguely grateful that Eren was still close enough to be within reach in the midst of people walking up and down around them. Eren just smiled and tugged at Levi’s sleeve like he had before, and Levi could have devoted the rest of his life to the sole purpose of cherishing that small familiar gesture.

As soon as they reached the next level of the garage, they stood in wonder for a couple of seconds, or hours, there was really no way to tell. The low ceiling was scattered with spotlights in all colors, and the cones they emitted scurried over the heads of the people on the dance floor. The music was ear splitting, a galloping up and down that seemed to orchestrate every last movement in front of them in perfect harmony. 

Then there was this idea in Levi’s head, the knowledge that every fiber of his body oscillated with it, from the drum of bass in his chest to the jitter of every tiny hair on his skin. It felt like he could almost physically reach out and pluck the threads that held everything together, but as soon as he looked too closely, they would evaporate into thin air, just to form new connections that tugged at his sleeve. 

No, actually that was Eren again, eyes glowing in tune with the swirling lights on the ceiling. Levi couldn’t hear Eren’s laugh over the music, could just see the glee on his face and a row of pearl white teeth. Apparently, he had looked at the smile for a second too long, because suddenly, it flooded every dark and crooked corner of his being. Its radiance exorcised the demons that lured in their shadows, and just for tonight, he knew they wouldn’t return.

He blinked, and must have had missed something or other. He found himself surrounded by more people, the crowd before him surging in the stream of music like lucent particles of plankton. Eren and Levi had seemingly opted for the outer edge of the dance floor where there was more space, which Levi felt thankful for although he couldn’t exactly remember why. There was a smaller moment of clarity that gifted him with the notion that no one was tugging at his sleeve, and he was sure there was something fundamentally wrong with that.

He turned his head to find Eren dancing next to him, eyes closed and a small smile playing around the corners of his lips. The lower strands of hair had slipped from the loose knot at the back of his head, and a thin layer of sweat let his skin shimmer in the ever changing streaks of colorful light.

Everything was inherently where it belonged, a soothing balm on the aching leak torn in the city, in himself. It all didn’t matter down here, because now, Eren opened his eyes and _looked_ at him, and where there would have been a snide remark, there was nothing but unity, and Eren’s fingers scraping his scalp, and the unbearable feeling of soft touches on warm skin, and a whisper in his ear, "I wanna be alone with you." 

A minute ago, Levi wouldn’t have believed anything could make him leave the wonders of his surroundings, but that did the trick with ease. They scurried through the crowd, never completely evading the vicinity of the other, and found the door that led to the stairway. Most of the pillar candles had already burned down, only a few of them still struggling with a couple of last flickers before finally going out. It made Levi momentarily wonder how much time had passed. When they opened the door to the outside, they were greeted by the crisp white light of a cold November day, and Levi waited for that to catapult him back to reality, but the impact never happened. Eren’s chest heaved with a thrill that Levi could feel in his own as well, and his low voice sounded muted through the static the music had left in Levi’s ears. 

"Do you live alone?" One of Eren’s fingers caressed the back of Levi’s hand, and he closed his eyes to give way to the sensation it sent through his body, and nodded. Eren smiled. "Okay."

"Okay.", Levi managed.

An hour later, they shared a joint in Levi’s kitchen before laying down on the plush rug in front of his couch, looking at the artful stucco on the high ceiling and enjoying the sensation of cottony fibers on their skin. The curtains that hung before the windows were drawn shut, creating a little refuge for them to dwell in. Eren had chosen some downbeat music from Levi’s sparse collection of tapes and the tunes encompassed them softly.

"It smells so clean in here.", Eren said and took a deliberate breath through his nose. "Kind of like fresh laundry." 

He let his head loll to the side and looked at Levi with a glazed but gentle expression that elicited a brush of Levi’s fingers on his lower arm. The contact made Eren’s eyes flutter shut. 

"That's-" Eren's voice trailed off, and he slightly furrowed his brows as if in concentration. Levi's hand stopped. "That feels so intense.", Eren finally said and opened his eyes. Levi felt his mind tumble. 

"Please don't stop." The words were barely a whisper, just slipped out around a small exhale huffed from a heaving chest.

Levi let his hand wander further upward, keeping his touch so light it was barely even there. It raised the hairs on Eren's arms, and Levi could feel his own pulse accelerate merely from watching his fingertips perform that kind of control over something so delicate. He briefly grazed the outline of the leather band that hung around Eren's neck, the pendant still hidden beneath his shirt. Then he raised his hand, traced the back of Eren’s nose, his cheekbones, and smoothed out the furrow of his eyebrows. Carefully, he attended to his closed eyelids, and brushed his lashes, eliciting a surprised little curl in the corners of Eren’s mouth before concentration returned to his expression. 

What happened in this moment, Levi realized, was a comprehensive back and forth, an immediate effect of whatever he cared to induce. An array of conditions, precisely in tune, well-matched and reducible only to him as their single cause. It felt foreign, utterly different from everything he was used to. It was thrilling. 

Finally, he tilted his head and merely brushed Eren’s lips with his, and lingered. Eren drew a shaky breath, but other than that he understood, lay completely still and simply endured. Levi’s upper lip twitched in anticipation, but he withheld his instincts, didn’t allow for anything other to happen just yet. He solely watched Eren’s expression, reveled in how obviously tempted Eren was to move and to _demand_. Levi felt breath spill over his lips, consistent, yet trembling and nervous like the surge tirelessly battling an immovable dam.

And Levi waited. He relished. He savored. 

Then again, he _ruled_ , and relinquished it all, tore down the walls with a languid motion of his lips and tongue. He swallowed Eren’s sigh, and it tasted, oh so sweet, of want and desperation.

They rolled around, and whatever Levi had released between them was so rampant it simply swallowed them whole. Eren’s hands slipped under his shirt and explored his body with greedy touches before he unceremoniously pulled it up and tossed it to the side. Then he sat back, and Levi rested his hands on his thighs, kneading impatiently while watching Eren take off his own shirt. When he pulled it over his head, the pendant of his necklace slipped from the fabric and bounced back on his sternum. Levi could briefly make out an old skeleton key before Eren ducked his head and it disappeared between the press of their bodies. 

Levi reached around and felt lean back muscles move underneath tan skin before he gripped Eren’s ass through the infinite tease that were his jeans. Eren hissed and broke away from Levi’s lips. He rocked back a little on his knees before entirely stilling his motions.

"Shit. I-" He breathed heavily, and Levi could see the pulse work erratically underneath the skin of his neck. Eren let his forehead sink against Levi’s and looked at him with an intensity that Levi could only just endure without commanding the rest of their clothes come off. Eren took a deep breath, and Levi steadied him, not physically, with the soft press of his hand against the small of his back.

„Take your time“, he said evenly.

"I’m sorry but it’s… I mean I can’t… Fuck." Eren took another breath, visibly mustering his words. "I can’t exactly go through with this when I’m high on E."

Levi nodded, and calmly watched Eren’s eyes wander over his face trying to gauge his reaction. Levi was sure there must be something on his face, anything in his eyes giving away the tenderness he yielded with his regimen. 

"Can you, like…say something? You’re kind of making me nervous."

But there wasn’t.

"You don’t have anything to be sorry for.", Levi said calmly. "That’s a fifty-fifty chance for me too."

Eren released a sigh of relief. "Oh. Okay." He hesitated, then let himself slip from Levi’s lap and laid down beside him again, only closer this time to share some body heat. 

"This is still nice.", Eren said, and Levi briefly thought Eren was so ridiculously easy to read it was almost like a silent invitation, one he wasn't sure whether to accept. Eren draped an arm across his chest, and Levi let him. He briefly closed his eyes to savor the comforting weight. And then they said nothing, just listened to the soft ups and downs of music and rode out their high together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just fyi, the club described here actually exists. Berlin was full of these places in the 90s, not that I'm old enough to have experienced them first hand. But this place I have once been to a couple of years ago (although in another city) and the atmosphere was incredible so I wanted to include it.


End file.
